Wednesday, August 24, 2011

kaboom! Goes the Dynamite -- FOR REAL??

DUCKTALES #4, the immediate successor to the utter disaster that was DT #3, was originally scheduled to be released this week. Curious thing, though... I could find no sample preview of the issue on the Boom! Web site or anywhere else. I checked the "Extended Forecast" lists at ComicList (see link below) and was presented with this shiny nugget of news:

Wuh-oh! I've never seen anything like this in my time. (Perhaps someone more familiar with the Whitman Comics "plastic bag" era has; Joe, David, how about you?) Since #4 is the final issue of the "Rightful Owners" arc, something major must be up here. A couple of suggestions for the delay, suggested by me and others on the Disney Comics Forum:

(1) DT #4 was SO HORRIBLY DREADFUL that even Boom! wasn't willing to try and release it, especially in light of the fallout from DT #3.

(2) Someone at Disney got wind of the abysmal quality of DT #3 and nixed the publication of DT #4 until it could be reviewed for, as they say, "quality control purposes."

(3) Disney may be so appalled by DT #3 that it pulled the plug on kaboom! Disney comics two months before the scheduled end of the line.

8 comments:

I've been wondering if/half-expecting something like this to happen. It seems likely DT #4 being MIA has something to do with the reaction to DT #3. But exactly what is going on behind the scenes, we have no idea, as Boom has not publically engaged in the slightest measure of dialogue publically about the situation.

The delay could be the result of the online reaction, or the deadline crunch that I believe hurt the book from the start. It's possible that a new art team has been assembled to complete the run even before #3 came out, and #3 became a not-so-noble sacrifice. I'm hoping the book won't wind up in limbo like Batman: Odyssey - it wasn't as bad as that. :) I don't even think it was supposed to be a 4-part tale, but there are no clues to how long it would have been if that were the case.

If "Rightful Owners" weren't originally a four-parter, that would explain, at least a little bit, the sluggish development of the plot; taking so long to get off Rippon Taro and such. But since the four-issue arc has been SOP with Boom!'s DISNEY AFTERNOON comics, perhaps this was simply poor pacing on Spector's part.

But since the four-issue arc has been SOP with Boom!'s DISNEY AFTERNOON comics

Yes, four-issue arcs are consistently all that have been done in the Disney Afternoon books, although I don't know if that's ever been confirmed as a Boom requriement (as much as it looks to be the case).

However, the interview with Spector at http://www.newsarama.com/comics/ducktales-warren-spector-interview-110622.html yields some insight. Note that he says:

"I don't know about the 'long haul'. I committed to a four-issue story arc."

Take that as evidence that this storyline was never supposed to be any longer than that. Revisiting the sites of many of Scrooge's past adventures lent itself to much more, though, so you're not wrong, comicbookrehab, for thinking that it seems like it was supposed to have been longer!

Quoting Chris again:

If "Rightful Owners" weren't originally a four-parter, that would explain, at least a little bit, the sluggish development of the plot; taking so long to get off Rippon Taro and such.

Let me zero in another excerpt from that interview:

"In other words, I think I’m a decent writer. But my next thought, following on from that was 'How tough can comics be?' I don’t know what I was thinking...

"Let me tell you, writing comics is as hard as anything I’ve ever done — for me, at least. I’m now officially in awe of guys who can crank out multiple books a month and maintain a high level of quality. Comics are completely different than any other medium I’ve dabbled in [...] So, yeah, there's been an adjustment period!"

This gives me the impression that Spector went into this earnestly, with nothing but the best of intentions, but was rushed along way too much, and realized that there were more factors than he'd reckoned. Given all that flack that #3 got, I feel bad for him -- and I really still think that the objections are on an editorial and publisher level...right down to how they latched onto the clout his name brought, and didn't bother to make sure that he was primed for the job.

From the end of #1 until partway through #3, we were at Rippan Taro -- you'd think this was exclusively a "Status Seeker" sequel. I think this is a result of Spector not being with familiar plotting and pacing a four-issue arc accordingly. The cliffhanger -- if it can be called that -- that #3 ends with, overtly intended to build suspense and excitement for the grand finale, struck me as an eleventh-hour effort to salvage the arc, after realizing, "Uh oh, there's only an issue to go!" Really, after returning only one treasure/artifact, we shouldn't be skipping right to the final act. But this should've been caught, and the serial reined in, on an editorial level much sooner.

In that case, Warren's idea was probably to focus on treasures that Scrooge kept which were based on Barks stories and adapted into Ducktales episodes, which means that the ruby and the crown were meant to be showcased and that was all. The bug ruse/scheme would've been exposed and foiled before Scrooge would even begin to go down his list of items. Returning the crown would've been a simpler task (I don't think Scrooge was going to hand it over to the snowman, or did I just spoil pt. 4?).In many ways, this is unfolding like the 3-part Mickey Mouse serials that Paul Murray drew. It might be Big Bad Pete wearing a fake duckbill or Ma Beagle in drag as the bumbling assistant.

The quote from Spector does explain a lot. Perhaps he needed to be eased into the job by doing a few simpler stories first... but the first issue of a trumpeted new series is not exactly the best venue in which to debut. Kinda like a star college pitcher getting tossed into a big league game right out of college, except that Spector didn't even have any "college experience" to fall back on!

Incidentally, I am told the outcry over DT#3 did indeed earn additional scrutiny over the rest of the issues coming out from BOOM!, as DT#3 was apparently sent to print WITHOUT Disney approval, something the managing editor at the time had asked to do on several occasions during my time there. (For the record, I never did it.)